


Relief

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: CyberSix
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Capture, Genderfluid Character, Kissing, M/M, Secret Identity, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: He hadn't even seen Cybersix in the past few days.  He could never have expected that a stroll with Adrian would lead to them both being ambushed by José and his goons.  But here they were, with Lucas helpless and Adrian being crushed under the unflinching force of a Fixed Idea, while José turned his sadistic eyes on them.  And Lucas found he couldn't shake the sense that Adrian could have been spared all this, if only he hadn't been unlucky enough to be in Lucas' company.





	Relief

**Author's Note:**

> A kissing prompt from my tumblr. It's been a while since I've had enough free time to do fandom stuff, so I'm flexing my writing muscles again...

“Leave him alone, he has nothing to do with– _ughn!_ ”  The massive hand holding Lucas against the rough, gravel-pocked concrete raised just long enough to thump down harder on his back, winding Lucas and forcing his jaw to bounce against the hard ground.  His tongue throbbed where he’d bit it and his mouth tasted like copper.

Any concern he might have for himself though was drowned out by the terror he felt for Adrian.

Twisting his head, Lucas could just make out the shape of Adrian, pressed against the ground as he was, dwarfed by the massive body of the Fixed Idea that had one massive hand wrapped around Adrian’s head, and a knee pressed hard against the small of his back.  The Fixed Ideas, José, all these warped genetic monsters and their evil master – it was terrifying, and Lucas could admit it.  Lucas had gotten into a scuffle or two growing up, but it was nothing like what he had been thrown into since meeting Cybersix.  He could handle it through.  He was strong, sturdy, and faithful to his enigmatic friend.  He knew what horror stalked Cybersix, and he had accepted that, accepted what he would be forced to face if he persisted to stay by her side.  It was worth it, but that was a decision he had made for himself.

Adrian hadn’t asked for any of this.  Adrian was short, scrawny, sensitive… seeing the rise and fall of his shoulders as he tried to breath around the heavy body holding him down filled Lucas with the imagined sounds of breaking ribs, desperate wheezing as air was choked out of a thin body, and a horrible silence…

“Harrumph.  I _told_ Cybersix to show up here alone… and instead there’s _no_ Cybersix and these two idiots instead.”

Acting on impulse and desperation, Lucas made a lunge when the twerp’s shiny brown shoes clicked into view.  He didn’t manage to move more than an inch though, before the hands gripping his shoulders pressed down with renewed force.

José just sneered down at him.

“Did Cybersix send you?  Her dumb, tagalong mutt.”

No.  It has been several days since Lucas had even seen Cybersix.  He had been walking with Adrian, trying to convince him to come out with some of the other fellows from school, to celebrate the end of the reporting season.  Now he was more grateful than ever that he hadn’t listened when Adrian had tried to convince him to go on without him, making feeble excuses of prior engagements, of being tired, or not being hungry…  What would Adrian have done if he had been ambushed alone?

Or would he have been ambushed at all?  Lucas felt his mouth dry at the thought, guilt pounding his ears.  Was it only Lucas’ presence that had gotten Adrian into this trouble?  That thought was like a shot of ice directly into Lucas’ spine.

José continued his meandering, cocky stroll.  He stopped where Adrian’s face was being ground into the rough pavement; José nudged Adrian’s head with the toe of his shoe, and Lucas shouted in fury.

“And who are you supposed to be?  Some other weak human pet Cybersix decided to collect?”

Lucas saw Adrian’s eyes jump from where they were focused on José’s shoes to meet Lucas’ eyes.  The terror in his features was palpable, and Lucas felt sick bearing witness to it.  It was a helpless, horrified dread that had turned to face him.  Could Adrian even see him from that far away?  His glasses lay in pieces some meters away, glass scattered in glittering shards from when they had flown from Adrian’s face and shattered on the road.  Could Adrian make out the familiar face, or was he even more scared right now, lost in a blurred, confused world where nothing made sense and he was being held by monsters?

That terror held, frantic, as Adrian’s eyes jumped, as if looking for some sort of senses, some sort of escape.  It held for one breath, two, three… and then all of a sudden, it began to fade.  The tension loosened from his narrow shoulders, and a decided look settled over his face where the fear had been.

Lucas wasn’t sure what to make of that at all, until Adrian suddenly spoke.

“Yes.”

José seemed as baffled as Lucas.  “ _What?_ ”

“Yes,” Adrian repeated, firmly.  “I was sent here by Cybersix.  She knew this was going to be a trap, so she sent me.”

“Ha!” crowed José, chest inflating with arrogance.  “She’s such a coward that she can’t even face me on her own?  Typical!  She knows some outdated Cyber no match to the likes of _me_!  Instead she sends these two–”

“No,” said Adrian sharply, cutting José off.  “She only send me.  He followed me.”

Lucas stared.  He wasn’t sure what Adrian was doing, if he was telling the truth, if he was lying in some misguided attempt to protect him…

Adrian continued, regardless of the looks Lucas tried to shoot him.  “Cybersix doesn’t–”  A breath.  “She doesn’t trust him.  She knows how curious he is about genetic experiments… she didn’t want him to be here to hear this, in case he got ideas.  So she sent me.  Lucas has nothing to do with this.”

It was a lie, it had to be a lie.  And for some reason, Adrian was delivering this lie, straight-faced.  Did Adrian think he needed to protect Lucas?  Lucas could take care of himself.  It was Adrian who was in danger, couldn’t he _see_ that?

“So?  Out with it!  What did Cybersix think was so important that she sent some human to deliver it?  Nothing important enough for her to show up herself, clearly,” José added with a sneer.

“I’m not going to say it while he’s here,” said Adrian firmly, nodding towards Lucas.

“ _Adrian_ ,” hissed Lucas.

“How _dumb_ do you think I am?” snarled José.  And immediately, before Lucas could register the shift, José had drawn his foot back and kicked Adrian squarely in the face.

Blood splattered from Adrian nose while Lucas screamed.  Adrian took with little more than a grunt.  Lucas was begging now, trying to convince José to let him go, _just let him go already_ , but José ignored him wholesale.  With a snap of his fingers, José stepped back, and the Fixed Idea holding Adrian stood, Adrian’s body hanging from its massive arms.

There was a brief moment when Adrian’s entire body stiffened, legs coiling, tension shooting through him like a struck piano wire, but then just as quickly it left and Adrian simply dangled.  Had Adrian meant to attack but thought better of it?  If that was the case, Lucas thanked any god that would hear him – he didn’t want to know what would happen to little Adrian if he had tried to kick the Fixed Idea holding him.  Or heaven forbid, José.  Nothing good, and Lucas couldn’t stand to thinking any further than that.  He felt sick to his stomach, the fear for his friend overwhelming.

Seeing Adrian like this now though, raised from the ground, no longer obstructed, did nothing to maintain any relief Lucas felt at Adrian’s restraint.  One side of his face was dirty and scratched from gravel while blood flowed from his nose, courtesy of José’s kick.  His hair, in a final, pitiful display, drooped from its usual style, hanging in pathetic strands across his face, obscuring his expression from Lucas’ view.  Maybe that was a mercy.  He wasn’t sure he could handle seeing that look of pain and fear.

“Please,” croaked Lucas.

“Will you _shut him up_?” José snapped, exasperated.

Lucas couldn’t see it come, pressed against the pavement as he was, but not a moment later the massive, sledgehammer fist of a Fixed Idea had slammed into the back of his head and for a moment Lucas’ world was consumed by light and nausea and distortion.

“You can do whatever you like to me,” Adrian warned, his voice filtering unwaveringly through Lucas’ confusion.  “Cybersix trusted me and I’m not saying anything as long as _he_ could overhear.”

José must have weighed the benefits of using that as an excuse to continue to beat Adrian to a bloody pulp versus the desire to sooner have good news to bring to his father.  It was a miracle the latter won.

“ _Fine._   You!  Keep a hold of that reporter.  I don’t need him making a mess of things.  I’ll deal with him later.  I’ll show Cybersix what happens when she sends flunkies after me.”  Lucas could hear the way Adrian’s breath caught at that, but José didn’t seem to; instead he just gestured to the Fixed Idea holding Adrian, “You, bring him and follow me.”

Lucas struggled to make a final, feeble objection, but he could barely find his breath never mind words, and so he could do nothing but watch as José marched around the corner of an alley, followed by the Fixed Idea hauling Adrian out of view.

For a moment, there was silence, and Lucas had to live in that.  With the uncertainty, the fear.  What was Adrian telling them?  _Did_ he have anything to tell?  Had Cybersix told him something?  Was he lying to save Lucas?  And what happened if he _didn’t_ have anything to say?  Was he being tortured right now?

Would he be killed?

Deep down, Lucas feared that was the wrong question.

And then came the scream.

It wasn’t Adrian’s.

It was José’s.

The Fixed Idea holding Lucas was clearly just as startled, because its head whipped around, trying to decide if it should go to its master’s aid, and Lucas felt its hands loosen on him for just a moment…

A moment was enough.

Lucas used the sudden extra freedom in movement to rear back and slam his head against the Fixed Idea’s nose.  It howled and lurched back, freeing Lucas’ lower body so he could flip around and send out a wild kick, knocking the brute off balance, and then he was running.  Lucas could hear the Fixed Idea shouting in rage at him, but Lucas was already sprinting around the corner and without hesitation slammed into the second Fixed Idea’s back as soon as it came into view.

The next couple minutes were hectic, and Lucas struggled to make sense of what happened.  He rode that Fixed Idea down to the road, where it hit the ground hard, and he punched it as hard as he could, repeatedly.  By that point it was clear that it wasn’t holding Adrian any longer, and Lucas was moving again, frantically.  José was on the ground, unmoving and slumped against the wall.  No time to worry about that.  Adrian was staring at Lucas wide-eyed, breathing heavily.  Lucas didn’t hesitate – he could hear the first Fixed Idea getting to its feet from around the corner, and who knew how long these two would stay down.  He grabbed Adrian’s hand without hesitating and _ran_.

For a moment he worried if Adrian would be able to keep up, but he ended up keeping stride with Lucas, no problem.  Fear did wonders for one’s athletic abilities, Lucas supposed.  His heart, at least, felt fit to burst.

They ran until they couldn’t run anymore – Lucas was wheezing when they finally stopped, and Adrian stumbled to a stop just after him, immediately leaning against the wall of a nearby shop.  His eyes never left Lucas.

Lucas’ didn’t leave Adrian either.  His gaze jumped over him, looking for sign of injury, of consequence; Adrian’s baggy pants were torn on at the knee and his was muddy all over, but overall, he was whole.  Lucas felt like he could cry.  Still dazed from the blow to the head, from flood of adrenaline, from the fear and shock and horror of this entire situation, Lucas stumbled over on numb legs and pulled Adrian into a crushing hug.

“Are you okay?” came Adrian’s voice, muffled against his chest.  “Lucas?”

“ _Me_?  Are you _serious_?  What were you _thinking_ , Adrian?”  He pulled back, holding Adrian at arm’s length so he could stare at his friend.  “Do you have any idea what these people are like?  What they could have done to you?  _Fuck_.”

“Lucas…”

“You can’t just _do_ that, I was terrified, Adrian!  I thought they were going to kill you!  I don’t know what sort of lucky hit you got on José, but you have _no_ idea what these people are capable of–”

“Lucas, I’m okay.  Everything’s fine now, Lucas.”

Everything was fine.  It was so hard to believe.  Thoughts of Adrian crushed under the Fixed Idea, of him bled pale and lifeless by José, of him crumbled in some alley Lucas couldn’t even reach him... those images were so vivid, so real in Lucas’ head it was hard to accept the living, talking Adrian in front of him.

_Adrian was still, against all odds, alive._

He didn’t hesitate when he pulled Adrian back towards him, nor did he hesitate when he pulled Adrian into a crushing kiss.  Every emotion he couldn’t put to words, he tried to press into the Adrian’s soft, surprised lips: desperate, grateful, scared, and so so relieved.

It was a _thank god you’re alive_ kiss.

It was a _I thought I might never get the chance to do this_ kiss.

It was a _I don’t want to miss this chance ever again_ kiss.

He hadn’t given himself time to think, to consider Adrian’s response, so he didn’t know whether to be surprised or not when, after a moment of shock, Adrian melted into the kiss, arms wrapping around Lucas’ neck.

Instead he chose to just feel… relieved.

Everything else could come after.


End file.
